This was written by Sady. Posted on Tuesday, August 3, 2010, at 5:07 pm. Filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

5 Comments

Part of my love for Mad Men hasn’t been just its explicit portrayal of sexism, but also its implicit portrayals as well. This last episode alone had two:

* A psychiatrist makes a joke about the dominant image in tampon ads: “the carefree woman in white pants.” Camera cuts around the conference table: all the men laughing, all the women forcing smiles. But hey! Nobody’s angry! Everything’s good, right?

* Joan comes in to Roger’s office to talk about the Christmas party. Roger sits down on his desk while Joan stands. The camera follows him down, framing Joan’s bust and ass in the shot but cutting off her face, while Roger reminisces about this red dress she wore once. But hey! He’s not raping her! Everything’s good, right?

It’s easy to watch Mad Men and pat ourselves on the back for not being as overtly sexist as the 60s. But Weiner & Co. are also good at showing the subtle influences of male privilege as well. The way guys steamroll over female contributions to a group dynamic. The way the male gaze frames so many images. Fifty years later, that hasn’t changed.

@Ed: I sympathize, but most of the plot developments I discussed occurred during episodes that aired over a year ago. The other things I touched on — in a very vague, un-spoilery way, I have to tell you — happened on an episode that aired before the article was published, and is available online. I feel for people who are just now catching up on Mad Men, even live with one of them, but I don’t think there’s a public responsibility not to talk about anything that has ever happened on the show, for fear someone might not have seen it yet. All of the info I shared is available elsewhere, not only in show recaps but in interviews with the folks behind the series and in critical appraisals.

That said, sorry! There’s still plenty more I didn’t talk about, trust.

I’m amazed at how many people commented just to tell you how little they care about Snooki! Especially this deprived individual:

I will be honest, I’ve never heard of either Snooki or Franco. Until reading this article, I thought Lady Gaga was a band, not a person. If these persons are representative of the current 21st century American zeitgeist, then I am more than happy to be out of the mainstream cultural loop for a few more years.

Is he an immortal, centuries-old vampire who just decided to sit out the 21st century? Is he a cave-dwelling hermit, living in ignorant bliss in the Czech countryside, satisfied to merely watch the comings and goings of the local sheep? Is he the god Zeus, hunting and pecking at his newfangled computer keyboard, befuddled by this whole “television” thing the mortals have invented?